A Town Called America Read Online Free PDF

little sunlight. Looking down at his wrist, he saw that his watch wasn’t working either.
    Holding his shotgun at the ready, he slowly opened the door. Immediately he saw a dark haze covering nearly the entire sky. Smoke rose from something burning in the distance, just above the tree line. Before Rick could close the door, the sound of a violent explosion shook the cabin, startling him and Chris and also almost knocking them off their feet.
    Rick thought the explosion was far off in the distance, but he knew the blast had to have been huge.
    “What the hell is going on, Rick? Talk to me.”
    “I’m not sure…just what I heard on the radio yesterday. What I told you is all I know. Anything else is just speculation on my part.”
    “You said everything will be dead. What exactly is
everything
?”
    “I don’t know, but my guess is we’ll find out soon enough. I’m going to take a look around outside. Stay here until I get back. Don’t open the door for anyone, and keep quiet. There’s a pistol in the drawer next to the sink.”
    Rick put on his leather jacket and boots and headed outside.

    Chris attached a worn leather holster around her hips. It gave her a sense of strength she actually liked. She placed a few small logs in the fireplace and blew three good breaths under them, causing a smallflame to come to life. After restarting the fire, she poked around the cabin, looking at the few pictures on the walls. They were mostly of Rick, but in a few of them, he was holding a young child in his lap.
He looks happy in these pictures
, she thought. After a time she made her way upstairs to the loft.
    In the bedroom there was a queen-size bed with dark plaid blankets and a small wooden table next to it. In the corner stood a large gun safe that was almost as tall as Chris. Books—many books—were neatly stacked on the floor all around the room and almost covered the entire desk in the far corner. The desk sat near the only window in the room, which Rick had boarded up the night prior. Peering between the boards, Chris couldn’t see anything, as the air was dark with smoke.

    Rick had walked around the cabin and up the small trail to the top of the hill. After moving up the narrow path and through the trees, he stopped just under a deer stand far above in one of the trees. He climbed up to the stand then sat in silent awe and disbelief at the scene before him.
    The longer he sat, the darker the sky became from the massive amounts of smoke. The smoke was so thick that it nearly blocked the sun and made it difficult for him to breathe. Covering his mouth with his shirt, Rick stared at the few rays of light that were breaking through the sky and casting a golden haze on the earth below. In the distance he saw the freeway he had traveled on the day before. Following it with his eyes toward town, he saw everything was still and silent—no people moved, and the buildings didn’t have a single light on, nor was there any noise. It felt as if time had stopped, and everything was frozen in place. In his heart he knew Brick Creek was gone.
    Then it happened again: another thunderous explosion in the distance. Rick instinctively grabbed the side of the deer stand to keep his balance nearly thirty feet above the ground. The explosion rocked the small stand, almost causing him to lose his footing and plummet fromthe tree. His eyes were now straining to see through the smoke and haze; he just barely made out the flames from the burning buildings inside Brick Creek’s walls.
    For the next few minutes, he sat on the stand, feeling confusion and deep sadness as he watched his small town turn into a fiery mass.
This is it. The world is ending
, Rick thought.
    Unable to breathe and beginning to choke, he climbed down from his perch, as he’d seen far too much for his mind to process. He followed the trail back toward the cabin and stopped at his car. As he sat in the driver’s seat, he took a moment to try to ponder everything he